Protest

I grew up under Section 28. I was lucky – I had access to the internet in the early days of IRC (NeverNet), Yahoo Groups and GeoCities (West Hollywood neighbourhood) and so was able to work out who I was despite this. And, of course, understand that I was growing up under Section 28.

So I knew that, in those days, any relationship I could see me having was legally designated as a “pretended family relationship”. It means that equal marriage was, and is, a cause deep to my heart (and Labour’s failure with Civil Partnerships still hurts) despite criticisms of marriage in any form.

It means that marriage is something I take a lot of stock in. When my cousin got married I was sat next to my Dad and he was jostling as if to lift my arm during the “anybody here know of any lawful impediment” and I was furious with him for treating the ceremony with such frivolity.

Today, the news has been full of a maybe-protest at George Osbourne’s wedding as someone threw orange confetti over them. Initially assumed to be Just Stop Oil (who also protested at Pride London), they have denied it as an action of their’s (but celebrated it). And loads of centrists have come out with “how dare you ruin this guys important day”…

Bullshit.

This man is an arsehole and his austerity has massively screwed us over. His new wife was his chief of staff for many of those years. He deserves to be protested against – including on their wedding day. This would not be a frivolous act like my father’s jostling. It has purpose, it has import.

Or, it was someone throwing confetti in celebration.